Messi ends scoreless run with 1st-half hat trick
Dortmund keep pace with Bayern
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb 22, (AP): With a hat trick in the first 40 minutes and another goal near the end, Lionel Messi ended his worst scoreless run in six years in the Spanish league on Saturday.
Messi led Barcelona to a 5-0 rout of Eibar.
The Spanish powerhouses play their clásico in Madrid next weekend.
Barcelona’s fourth league win in a row also helped ease some of the pressure on club president Josep Bartomeu who, before the match, was jeered by part of the crowd. Fans, who also called for his resignation, have not been happy with Bartomeu’s administration amid one of the club’s worst institutional crises, which includes public conflicts between players and club directors.
Messi, one of the recent critics of club officials, ended his worst scoreless streak in the league since 2014 with a beautiful opening goal, sending the ball through the legs of defender Anaitz Arbilla and entering the area and finding the net in the 14th minute.
He beat Arbilla again with a run into the area before scoring the second in the 37th, and three minutes later he sealed the hat trick with an easy goal off the rebound of a shot by Antoine Griezmann.
The fourth goal came in the 87th after he cleared Arbilla and goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic to shoot into an open net.
It was the fifth four-goal game for Messi in the league, and his sixth overall with Barcelona.
The goals kept Messi as the league leading scorer on 18, five more than
Werder Bremen’s Niklas Moisander (left), and Dortmund’s Erling Haaland fight for the ball during the German Bundesliga soccer match in Bremen, Germany on Feb 22. (AP)
Madrid striker Karim Benzema.
Messi had been decisive for Barcelona in recent games despite the scoreless streak, helping with a series of assists. He endured an eight-match scoreless streak back in 2014.
New signing Martin Braithwaite came off the bench to make his Barcelona debut after being signed from Leganés this week to help boost an attack missing the injured Luis Suárez and Ousmane Dembele. The Danish striker set up Messi’s fourth goal and the fifth by Arthur in the 89th.
Erling Haaland has scored yet again to help Borussia Dortmund move second in the Bundesliga with a 2-0 win at Werder Bremen.
The 19-year-old Norwegian took his tally to nine goals in six league games since joining in January from Salzburg, sealing the win Saturday in the 66th minute for Dortmund to keep pace with league leader Bayern Munich who beat Paderborn 3-2.
Borussia Mönchengladbach was on course to stay level with Dortmund on 45 points before Lucas Ribeiro scored in injury time to grab a 1-1 draw for visiting Hoffenheim. Gladbach stays fourth on 43 points.
Enda Stevens blasted the hosts in front in the 26th minute.
However, Neal Maupay equalized four minutes later to earn a point that pushed Brighton further clear of the relegation zone, though Graham Potter’s side is without a league win in seven matches.
United was dominant in the second half, with Brighton goalkeeper Mathew Ryan making a point-blank save to deny Oliver McBurnie near the end.
The draw kept the Blades in sixth place, although they were tied on points with fifth-placed Tottenham. Both are four points adrift of Chelsea.
However, fifth place is enough to qualify for the Champions League because second-placed Manchester City was punished last week with a two-year ban from European competitions for breaching financial regulations. City has said it will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Southampton 2, Villa 0 Aston Villa’s relegation fears in the English Premier League deepened after Shane Long and Stuart Armstrong scored for Southampton in a 2-0 victory at St Mary’s.
Villa did not muster a shot on target in a dismal display and stayed just a point above the bottom three.
Long’s eighth-minute strike and
Armstrong’s stoppage-time breakaway, after Villa goalkeeper Pepe Reina had gone up for a corner, eased Southampton – not so long ago appearing relegation-bound itself – to relative safety in the standings.
Villa could well be back in the relegation zone after the weekend.
Southampton kicked off with the worst home record in the league, but it did not show as the hosts tore into a Villa side with woeful form on the road. The opener came when Moussa Djenepo reached the byline and cut the ball back for Long to bundle in at the near post. Burnley 3, Bournemouth 0 Bournemouth had two goals disallowed by VAR as Burnley won their English Premier League match 3-0 at Turf Moor on Saturday to keep alive its hopes of a European spot.
The Cherries saw Josh King’s firsthalf effort chalked off for handball against Philip Billing before Matej Vydra scored his second goal in as many games following the break to give the hosts the advantage.
It got worse for Bournemouth when Harry Wilson’s equalizer after a counterattack was ruled out by video review and a penalty to Burnley was awarded instead for Adam Smith’s handball.
Crystal Palace eased any relegation concerns by beating Newcastle 1-0.